Chapter 5 #3
“It’s very bad,” he said. “Your lip is split, your cheeks are swollen, you have two black eyes…” He stopped, shaking his head.
“My nose isn’t broken, which is lucky,” I answered. “But my jaw is fractured. I don’t have to have surgery and my ribs will also heal.”
“Is your body as bad as your face? Who the hell did this to you? A stranger?”
“Yes,” I answered, and that was true. I tried to shift to get more comfortable. “You can go ahead with whatever you planned for tonight—oh, I was going to make dinner. I’ll do that.”
“No,” he said, and placed his palm on my shoulder when I tried to get back up. “I’m not hungry and I don’t have anything to do. I’m going to go look at your discharge instructions. Try to…” He stopped again, withdrew his hand, and then recommended, “You should rest.”
Since I was still sitting bolt upright, I didn’t feel like I could do that very well.
I eased myself down until I was lying on the couch and I tried to feel comfortable like that.
Physically (like in terms of my body), I was at a low point because now I was definitely in pain, a lot of it.
But also physically (in terms of my location), I was in the nicest place I’d ever been.
The room was big but also cozy, like the Reading Room, and the furniture had no tape, weird stains, or smells.
I couldn’t understand why Nolan didn’t want to spend more time here, because I would have lived very happily in this exact spot for the rest of my life.
The couch was amazing and I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy it.
Sometime later, I woke up to a voice telling me to open my mouth.
“Kolter, no, please, I’m so sore. Please don’t,” I begged him.
“Vivi, you have to take this pill.”
I gave up fighting and swallowed, then I sipped water from the straw that was at my lips.
I woke up again because there was sun streaming into my face, and that didn’t happen in Kolter’s house because the tape that held together the panes also blocked much of the light. More anger had led to more broken windows.
I blinked and looked at the art on the wall, a painting of a stern looking old guy in a silver frame.
Then I looked at the rug on the floor, which didn’t seem to be covering any missing pieces where plastic boards were broken.
It was quiet, though, which was the same as in my former residence.
I had come to the realization that I was in Nolan’s house but I couldn’t hear him at all.
Two prescription bottles sat on the coffee table next to me, along with a glass of water.
Slowly and carefully, I swung my legs around, helping them along with my hands.
Then I worked myself up into a sitting position, got the glass, and drank every drop, but I was still thirsty.
I moved even more slowly to stand. I blinked and swayed for a moment before taking a step, and it went ok so I took another.
I needed to find a bathroom, immediately, and I needed more water and maybe food? I wasn’t sure about that last thing.
In Kolter’s house, there was a main room with a kitchen, a bedroom, and one bathroom attached to it.
This place was more like a maze. I walked down a hallway and found a closet with several coats on hangers.
I opened the door of an office with a desk and a wall of huge windows.
I found another room that had three sides of bookcases, another fireplace, and chairs that reminded me again of the Whitaker Reading Room.
It seemed to take forever but I kept going, and I finally did find a bedroom with an attached bath…
thank goodness, a toilet. I felt much better after peeing but then much worse after seeing my face in the mirror as I washed my hands.
I had never been so beat-up, never, not after the car crash, after Kolter, or after problems with any of my other boyfriends.
None of them had spared their fists but this was terrible.
But it would heal, eventually, because bruises always did.
The fear part of it and the feelings of shame and humiliation would last longer because they always did, too.
I looked at the shower and wished I could get in there, but this wasn’t my house and I wasn’t sure what I could use.
The toilet had probably been ok, and anyway, I was going to clean it all from top to bottom to pay him back for letting me stay for the night.
I ran my finger over a panel in the door and was impressed with the lack of dust. Maybe he didn’t need my help.
I was about as fast as a turtle as I made my way back to the living room.
I saw the front door, which we hadn’t used yesterday, and the big staircase that Nolan had said he never used at all.
I went down another hallway that I vaguely remembered from the day before, too, and passed a large dining room with a big, beautiful chandelier that was probably very hard to reach to clean or to change the bulbs.
Finally, I arrived in the kitchen. The house was so old but this room was fresh and bright, and it did seem like it got more use than the other spaces. There was some mail on the counter, a glass next to the sink, and Nolan sitting at a round table next to more big windows.
“Hello,” he said. “Good morning.”
“Hello,” I answered. I stood there awkwardly and found that I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands.
Cadence’s pajama pants, the ones I was still wearing, didn’t have pockets.
I ended up covering my mouth with one of them, because it felt like it had been forever since I’d brushed my teeth.
I wasn’t going to do that anytime soon, either, due to how my jaw felt.
I held my other arm over my chest because she hadn’t loaned me a bra.
I didn’t have a ton going on in terms of breasts, but it felt weird to be standing in his kitchen without some kind of support there.
“Do you drink coffee? You had it when we met last winter.”
No, I had drunk water disguised in a coffee cup due to my cheapness and lack of funds. “I do like it. I’ll get it,” I said, but he had to make it for me because the machine was fancy and complicated.
“Milk? Sugar?”
I shook my head. I would have taken both but I felt like I was taking so much already, like space in this pretty house and time out of his day. But he didn’t actually seem to be doing much at the moment. There was nothing on the table except his own coffee cup, not even a phone.
That reminded me of my belongings and that I wondered if they were still intact. “I have to get my car,” I said.
“Your keys weren’t in that bag from the hospital. Your wallet is gone, too.” He pulled out another chair. “Why don’t you sit down?”
I knew that I did look bad enough to make people afraid that I would fall over. “Nolan, thank you so much. I really appreciate this, but I’m going to get out of here today. Like, within the next five minutes.”
“To do what? Where are you going to go?”
“I’ll figure something out. I always have,” I said.
“Or you could stay for a while.” He looked around. “A few years ago, I had a guy live with me from September to June and I hardly ever saw him. I don’t care if you do the same thing.”
“Did he pay you rent?”
“Rent?” he echoed. “No.” Then he repeated the same words. “I don’t care.”
“It really wouldn’t make a difference to you?” I asked, but he was already shaking his head before I finished the question. “Are you sure? You wouldn’t mind having a stranger in your house?”
“You’re not a stranger. I know you better than I did the guy who stayed before. I wasn’t ever sure of his real name.” He pointed at me. “Vivienne O’Keeffe. By the way, your mother was wrong. ‘O’Keeffe’ is Irish, not French.”
“Nolan…”
“Here you go,” he said, and he put a cup of coffee in front of me.
He rummaged around in a drawer and pulled out a straw wrapped in paper, like it was left over from a fast-food run.
He set it on the table next to the coffee and walked through a door.
I heard him going upstairs and I thought of how he’d said that he never went into the other part of the house.
He didn’t even use the nice staircase that I had found when I’d hunted down the bathroom.
If he didn’t care that I was here, why should I have? I unwrapped the straw and looked around the kitchen. Those two ovens probably worked.
He didn’t care about that, either, but I did. And I cared that he was doing this for me.